Shopify ‘26 Winter Editions: Tools for the Commerce Renaissance

Mani Fazeli, VP of Product at Shopify, joins the show to explore how agentic commerce is fundamentally transforming retail. From Sidekick's co-founder capabilities to Sim Gym's buyer simulations, Shopify is democratizing enterprise-level AI tools for merchants of all sizes. The conversation reveals why friction isn't always the enemy, how discovery is evolving beyond blue links, and why structured data is the new SEO.

The Irreducible Human Meets Humanlike Intelligence

Key takeaways:

• Discovery has evolved from a one-shot search to multi-turn conversations
• Friction has value: Some purchases deserve complexity, others need speed
• Structured data becomes critical for agentic commerce success
• [00:32:56] "Let's make special what's actually worth being special. And then let's be okay with the fact that the rest of it gets streamlined."
• [00:49:57] "Structured data becomes the new SEO. Every brand is going to have to worry about whether they have clean, well-structured, and well-understandable schemas."
• [00:04:20] "Utility above being flashy. Go right for the heart of what makes a difference in the merchant's life every single day."
• [00:33:39] "Until these systems become emotion aware, it's highly unlikely that they are completely eradicating the entire idea of manual human intervention in commerce."

In-Show Mentions:

• Shopify Winter '26 Editions

Associated Links:

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